Stolen Prize
by dontberidiculousjawn
Summary: This is a one-off, short piece that takes place when Sherlock is a kid; inspired by a post on my dash, describing how awful it is for Donovan and Anderson to mock Sherlock's experiments, because they were barging in on his private property and poking fun at him. Which led me to think about Sherlock's childhood, since D and A weren't the first bullies Sherlock had encountered.


"Are these spider legs?!" A young, blonde girl with two spiky plaits asked the small boy, in a shrilly voice. Her sticky hands shot out and grasped the small package of something. The package's owner, a small, pale boy, responded quickly. His forehead wrinkled, and he flushed.

"Give those back!" The thin boy reached out quickly, to reclaim his stolen prize. She retracted her arm, and curled her upper lip in disgust. Glancing around to make doubly-sure she had an audience, the blonde girl squinted her eyes towards the lanky boy and raised her voice a notch louder. "They were in your lunch box!" she exclaimed, as numerous mummers echoed around the circle of students who had gathered to watch. The small, dark haired boy in question faltered in his step. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy searched for a way to escape with his treasure still intact. When no such opportunity presented itself, the small boy stomped his foot. Instead of striking fear into the surrounding children, they remained impressed with the blonde girl's find, and drew closer still to the two of them.

"Freak…" "Ewww spiders!" "He's completely mental!" "Wait 'til Ms. Becker hears about this." The small boy drew his arm back towards his body, and for the first time raised his eyes towards the sticky blonde girl. He was vulnerable, it showed on his face, and yet something in his eyes made the blonde girl curious as to how far he was willing to take this. Lifting the package high over her head, the blonde girl made his treasure more unreachable still.

"They're… It's just an experiment of mine." Again the boy reached out his arm, stretching beyond his capability, upward, again expecting to receive his belonging. And yet again the blonde girl raised her voice and screamed even more shrilly "Ms. Becker! Sherlock has animal parts again!" A look of wild satisfaction glaze over her cruel brown eyes.

"…not an animal," Sherlock muttered. "What?" The blonde her whipped her plaits around, surprised the boy had the guts to speak up again. "I said, a spider's not technically an animal. It's an arachnid, it's not even really an insect." Before he had finished speaking however, another child from the group of on lookers spoke up. "What a loser," and with a huff of laughter the other children joined in.

The small boy's eye brows gathered. He was… well, he was confused. Him. Sherlock.

Out of the corner of his eye, the small boy noticed a growing figure headed towards the group of violent small children. He began to become panicked. "Susan please, give it back." She looked at him again with a snarl. "You want this icky bug back?!"

Growing frustrated, the boy nodded, only mentally noting that as he had said before, spiders were not technically insects nor animals. The girl just giggled in victory, as the adult figure grew too close for Sherlock to react as he would have liked. Mentally steeling himself, the boy prepared for another verbal-lashing that the teacher adored giving him.

How he loathed Ms. Becker. How he loathed this school. How he loathed these people. They weren't like him. They weren't special. He was.

This line of thought did nothing to comfort the small boy, whose countless hours of crawling on his hands and knees in his mother's garden, waiting for the common European garden spider– the orb-weaver to enthusiasts, Araneus diadematus to the accurate– to scuttle past him, were being grasped hopelessly in the sticky palm of the massive bully of a girl.

Ms. Becker hurried to calm the group of obviously agitated children. And– to her complete and utter un-surprise– she notices Sherlock in the center again, riling the children up. Why on earth that child felt the need to agitate his peers, she would never know. With a sigh Ms. Becker grabbed the small boy's upper arm and began dragging him towards the school building.


End file.
